Before You Throw Away Your ‘Protest’ Vote

Or, rather, for your friends like my reader ‘Spanky’ P of Los Lunas, New Mexico, who decided to get “they’re all the same” despairy and angsty and vote for Gary Johnson because Johnson is in favor of pot legalization. (There’s an interesting one-issue take on what’s important in The United States of America today.)

This is a story about what those votes do for the interests of those voters. And about a pig and what became of him.

The act of observing something can sometimes change the thing being observed. Case in point: my observation on Monday that we might be able to get useful clues as to the identity of Mitt Romney’s vice president pick by watching for a surge of edits on their Wikipedia page.

Not any more.

Last night, Stephen Colbert played a snippet of a Fox News report noting the jump in last-minute edits to Sarah Palin’s page four years ago, and then he went to town. Assuming that Wikipedia edits were the tip-off, he declared, “We could be looking at Vice President Season Six of Buffy-the-Vampire Slayer. So, Nation, let your voice be heard in this history decision. Go on Wikipedia, and make as many edits as possible to your favorite VP contender.” He then proceeded to mime editing Tim Pawlenty’s page…

Pigasus was a 145 pound (66 kg) hog. In August 1968, he was nominated for President of the United States during the Democratic National Convention as a theatrical gesture by the Youth International Party. At a rally announcing his candidacy, Pigasus was seized by Chicago policemen and his Yippie backers were arrested for disorderly conduct.

In 1968, Pigasus was nominated for the U.S. Presidency by the Youth International Party (Yippies).The pig’s name was a play on Pegasus, the winged horse in Greek mythology. Selected for the campaign by Dennis Dalrymple, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, candidate Pigasus was purchased from a farmer by Phil Ochs. His candidacy was announced during the the massive protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The Yippies demanded that Pigasus be treated as a legitimate candidate, with secret service protection and White House foreign policy briefings. One reason why the Yippies preferred Pigasus was that “if we can’t have him in the White House, we can have him for breakfast.”

Hilarious.

Except that Pigasus was enough of a red herring to elect Richard Nixon in 1968. Reason Magazine (of whom, regular readers will remember, I am not exactly a fan) tells us this:

After a three-ring trial, the defendants [the "Chicago 7"] were eventually acquitted on all charges, though some of them had to appeal the initial verdict before they were completely cleared. The convention and its aftermath had been a victory for the yippies.

It was a victory for their enemies, too. The central story of Chicago wasn’t just that cameras captured bloody police violence every evening. It was that the great American TV-viewing public overwhelmingly told pollsters afterwards that they sided with the cops. “That was our shortsightedness,” says Krassner. “When we started chanting, ‘The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching,’ we didn’t go to the next step, which was, And how are they gonna feel about it?”

[...]

In Nixonland, his insightful study of the period, the historian Rick Perlstein points out that Nixon “welcomed conflict that served him politically. A briefing paper came to the president’s desk in the middle of March instructing him to expect increased violence on college campuses that spring. ‘Good!’ he wrote across the face.” Jerry Rubin welcomed the polarization as much as Nixon did. “We yippies must reprint [George] Wallace speeches, get him TV time and open up offices for him all over the country,” he wrote in his 1970 book Do it! “He’s the best Marxist rabble-rouser in Amerika today. He’s our best organizer.” And: “To build their myth they exaggerate our myth—they create a Yippie Menace. The menace helps create the reality.”

On the fortieth anniversary of the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Managing Editor Jesse Walker looks back at how the media-savvy yippies inadvertently helped the right …

I’ve slightly edited that last to make my point clearer. (I don’t really care about their point.)

This is what the Yippies managed to turn Disneyland into
(As if it weren’t already that in plainclothes drag).
Look familiar “Occupiers”?

Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden had as much to do with electing Richard Nixon as anybody else.

Which is NOT the outcome that either wanted or intended. But, you know in American politics, those who think that their VISION really matters are more than happy to piss away their vote for some Quixotic notion that ends up biting them in the ass.

Another case in point, the 2000 Democratic National Convention, to which I was a delegate. Outside, the protests and the “Free Mumia!” crowd, and the Shadow Convention complete with suddenly “see the light” Arianna Huffington were happy to piss on the DNC, and the Independent Media Center (in which I was also credentialed press) were thrilled about how pure and noble they were, not like these scumbag Democrats. When I slogged back to our Westwood hotel (miles from downtown, but the “official” quarters assigned to Oregon and Iowa), I turned on the hotel TV and there was Tom Hayden, former Chicago 7 defendant, pimper of Pigasus, on the air pissing on the Democratic party (his party) and the nominee, Al Gore, and I thought to myself, DID YOU LEARN NOTHING FROM ELECTING NIXON?

Nope.

And, again, as the pie-in-the-sky, holier-than-thou votes were bled away, they were just enough of a wedge to swing that election.

This is what America looked like in 1968.

Raloh Nader’s campaign was always a vanity campaign, except that he and all his followers rationalized (and still rationalize) that its high-mindedness and correct thinking didn’t have NUTHIN to do with the outcome.

Much of what Ralph said was correct and spot on. But his campaign was always idiotic. Even assuming that he MIGHT have won (when pigs fly) he’d still have had to deal with Congress, and his election would have been a sad disaster with a dysfunctional government (remember what the GOP did to Clinton? Think what they’d have done to Ralph) and discredited ALL progressive politics for a generation.

Because we are at that silly season when, rather than banding together with those who best express one’s beliefs, it’s time to roll out the Green Party and piss on the Democrats for not being “progressive enough,” while, on the other side, there are a number, like Gary Johnson’s libertarian campaign, who will claim that their votes for him aren’t wasted and might as well have never been cast.

To the Greens: How much better was George W. Bush than Al Gore would have been on the environment? What did that childish “my way or the highway” get you?

marching for pigasus 1968

Attention? Certainly that was true of the yippies, except that trading personal notoriety for Nixon (who announced his resignation 38 years ago today, after his excesses and crimes became to egregious that even Republicans refused to defend him) seems like the worst rational tradeoff since they burned the Library of Alexandria for a better view of the sand dunes.

Either your vote counts or it does not. And yet, we think that taking it as a lark, as a moment to express our deep idealistic beliefs actually matters, which is, when you think of it, oxymoronic. Throwing away your vote for an impossibility is the same as not voting, and that doesn’t bespeak much respect for the process of democracy. You are presented with a choice, but decide to get “cute” and waste that choice, rationalizing all the way how you’re “too good” for the parties, and that they’re “Tweedle dum and Tweedle dee” when nothing about your non-choice bespeaks a level of sophistication any higher than could be expected of the imaginary Carrollian twins on their worst day.

This “they’re both the same” notion isn’t exactly original with you

This is the silly season when “high minded” voters decide that their votes do not count and scream “look at me! I’m TOO GOOD for the rest of you! I’m MORALLY SUPERIOR, which is why I throw away my vote on a hopeless campaign.”

Woo hoo.

(You will NEVER get 100 percent of what you want in a democracy. That only works for dictatorships, and then, only if you’re the dictator.)

And it gives us Bush the Dumber and Nixon, and, arguably Reagan. (Little-known fact: if you add John Anderson’s third party insurgency to Carter’s total in 1980, you come up with Reagan winning 51-49, and that’s not factoring in that a unified Democratic party might well have been worth an extra point or two in the final tally. In other words, thanks, Anderson voters, for Ronald Reagan. How’d that work out for you?)

This is what the Chicago Seven got out of their ‘hilarious’ prank

You’ve got to understand the teleological implications of your actions – teleol0gy means the study of “ends.” In other words: what you do has consequences, and no matter how far America is from your IDEAL of America (and I promise you, nobody’s entirely happy with things as they are, and far more are REALLY upset with how things are; those few who ARE entirely happy with the USA today are institutionalized and unable to vote, so we’ll pass over them) — no matter HOW unhappy you are, you can still choose between “better and worse.”

Richard Nixon = “worse.”

Jimmy Carter = “better.”

George W. Bush = “worse.”

President Nixon on television at moment of his resignation 8-8-74

(And, if you’re on the other side of the aisle, come up with your own examples. You are not my primary audience here, although what I say applies equally to both sides of the political spectrum.)

The point here is that the new tr0lling of the “look at me! I’m so RIGHTEOUS!” crowd is EXACTLY the same as the trolling of the other side. And that’s true of ALL sides.

Is that really what you FUNCTIONALLY want? Is that the “better” choice? Or would you rather be Abbie Hoffman and elect Richard Nixon and spend the rest of your life rationalizing it? Or electing George W. Bush and pretending that since some of your issues were correct that you actually did right in voting for Ralph Nader and he had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.

And then no chance whatsoever of governing?

This ain’t a monarchy. The congress and Supreme Court are co-equal branches, and you’d better make the choices that are going to be BETTER for your point of view. Look at the final outcome, and ask yourself if my vote matters, shouldn’t I make sure that I cast it responsibly? Vote for the party (and none of this “I vote for the man, not the party” nonsense — because it is demonstrably nonsense. The Republican congress or senate votes with their party 99 44/100ths percent* of the time, and the Democratic representative just a little less, unless bullied by the fear of Tea Parties or anti-abortion hooligans) and vote for the outcome that’s going to BEST represent your views in the next two years.

[* for those that remember Ivory Soap commercials of old, yes, the joke is intentional.]

If that doesn’t at least convince you to consider it, consider instead what actually happened to Pigasus:

Sources vary on the fate of Pigasus. There is some speculation that a police officer took him home for dinner.*

Pigasus arrested by Chicago police

Yum.

That’s an apt metaphor for what happens when you betray your realities to your ideals.

Courage.

[* Wikipedia [ibid]: “The Chicago Tribune, on September 30, 1968, said that after Pigasus was taken into custody by Chicago police, they transported him to the The Anti-Cruelty Society, along with a sow called “Mrs. Pigasus, and a piglet, all collected after being paraded by the Yippies as part of their demonstrations around the time of the convention. The swine were later transferred to a farm in Grayslake, Illinois.”

There is n0 mention of what happened to the pigs at the farm. But I don’t think the answer is that obscure. Very doubtful in America that they ended up as “petting zoo” pets. Pass the bacon.]

Hail Nancy Ray-Gun: This is your brain on the drug of self-righteousness.

===================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, an honorary Texan, Clown (ditto) and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.

Carl

Man look at Nixon’s left eye. Is that man crazy or what? That eye is DEAD and rolled back into his head! The whole right side of his brain is DEAD! How many people died because of the decisions crazy Nixon made? Why do we have no safeguards protecting us from electing a crazy president? Nowadays our elections are riotously insane money machines for the corporate media at the expense of the people. Only a matter of time before we get a real crazy in there ready to destroy the world.

clarkma5

Third parties must start in the legislature so they can caucus appropriately. It’s also a more realistic place to third party candidates to end up (being voted in by counties that represent their views more specifically, until over the course of several elections their voices hold more sway over the legislature in general and get more and more play within society, where they can be considered and added to the national consciousness).

DORIAN DE WIND, Military Affairs Columnist

Here are a few of 25 reasons voiced by 25 people I came across why not to throw away your vote — and vote for Obama:

9. “The actions he has taken with respect to protecting us from terrorism have been very, very solid.”
Colin Powell, Virginia

10. “I was really very grateful to him for standing up for those kids who are having a really rough time out there because of their orientation.”
Jane Lynch, California

14. “I am voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden because I can trust them to care for the middle class and restore the American dream.”
Steven, Florida

15. “The first measure he signed into law after becoming president was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — so a female high school counselor or physical education teacher can fight for equal pay for equal work.”
Connie Britton, California

16. “I believe in the America he wants for my grandchildren.”
Nancy, Michigan

18. “I’ve watched him fight for our country, stand by the middle class, the working class, the military, the education of our children, universal health care, women, the environment, and matters of national and domestic security.”
Susan, Virginia

19. “The gifted 12-year-old I taught, whose parents were deported and left her here with her grandmother, will be allowed to stay and finish her education. She’s been in the U.S. since age one.”
Jamie, North Carolina

20. “When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters, and the values that are required to guide us there.”
Michael Bloomberg, New York

21. “I have four children who are under 26 and able to stay on my health care plan. That’s been huge.”
Amy, Pennsylvania

22. “He’s fighting to defend and better Social Security and Medicare — because millions of Latino seniors rely on them.”
Cristina Saralegui, Florida

23. “Thanks to the President’s efforts to keep student loan rates low, I can expect to save nearly $1000 as I work to repay my student loans. And I don’t have too many of those, thanks to the Federal Pell Grant program.”
Sam, Minnesota

zephyr

What Hart and Dorian said. Third parties won’t become viable unless we switch to a ranked voting system – which probably isn’t likely. Until then, it may seem all cutting edge and principled, but in reality it’s a wasted vote. The obvious and tragic lesson was in Y2K.

zephyr

in reality it’s a wasted vote

Or much, much worse.

http://themoderatevoice.com T-STEEL, Site Administrator

Yep. I “threw” my vote away voting Green Party here in South Carolina. And why do some of you “principled Big 2 voters” care? My state isn’t part of the Electoral College War. Only 10 states matter because they are so-called battleground states. So you all go ahead and wave your finger at we voters who “throw away” our votes. Last time I checked, no vote is a throw away or a waste. When I become the First American Dictator, I’ll remember that. Heh heh heh…

zephyr

Well, if your state is a foregone conclusion (deep red or deep blue) then you can vote third party in relative safety. If it’s a purple state, then different rules apply.